Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela
This week I attended an event that marked the Rivonia Trial 48 years ago and the establishment of Umkhonto weSizwe 50 years ago. Denis Goldberg, one of the trialists spoke about his experience during that time and related the trialists emotional state at the time. He said that they were very convinced about their cause and, most importantly, had “no fear”.
For me that is what stands out about Madiba (former president Nelson Mandela) and his contemporaries.
The question that arises is: “How can we have our Madiba moments that have no fear going forward in South Africa?”
Fear has permeated everything we do in South Africa. There is fear that if people speak their minds they will be politically sidelined or their businesses will not get the required contracts if they speak up about corruption or anything else that matters to their business.
You have entrepreneurs that need to highlight barriers to innovation and economic progress in the system, but are not doing so for the fear of not getting the funding to sustain their new ventures. It seems that most of the people that are speaking out without fear are the ones who do not have much to lose.
These are the people who are not employed, who do not see the economic impact of the new South Africa on their lives in a meaningful way.
When the Rivonia trialists and other political prisoners went through their hardships they knew that they were right in pursuing the struggle and this gave them the motivation to sustain their cause.
The apartheid government exhibited actions of a fearful nature and often resorted to violence to mask their pervasive fear of the “swart gevaar”.
The political prisoners had moral legitimacy that was universally acknowledged, whereas the government did not have this, which is why the apartheid state did everything to tighten its grip on power.
Furthermore, there was integrity in the struggle for comrades and their advocates from the point of view of congruency in their thoughts, words and deeds.
This was largely absent in the apartheid regime because the fear that the regime had created caused incongruency between what the regime thought, said and did.
These contrasts permeated the political environment for so long that something had to give. The outcome of such a struggle is that right overcomes might. The legacy of those on the right side lasts longer than those on the might end.
The legacy of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Beyers Naude, among others, still lives on and is celebrated.
The legacy of Hendrik Verwoerd, Adolf Hitler, the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan (who are mostly unknown) is remembered so that we don’t fall into the same trap again, but it is reviled and found contemptuous by most people. Fear and lack thereof is one distinguishing factor in the historical legacy of these figures.
In South Africa, we need people that are fearless and ooze with integrity. We need business people and entrepreneurs that are internally driven by their gut feel to do what is right without fear or compromise because the sustainability of our economy relies on these people. We need to hear the voice of business more clearly than we have because of the pervasive fear permeating the business environment.
When we assess what we get by being fearful, it turns out that it is not that much. The outcome of fear is more scarcity rather than abundance. The abundance generated by the fearless leaders in all spheres of our lives is quite evident.
So I implore our leaders and ordinary South Africans to always imbue their Mandela moments with a fearless approach to everything they do.
Mandela demonstrated that integrity always triumphs over fear because integrity integrates all the elements of a person’s being which makes them a powerful force to reckon with.
As Marianne Williamson says: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
South Africa, let us not be frightened by our indivisible light. - Business Report